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Translational Research Institute

TRI Leadership

Executive Leadership

Laura James, M.D., Principal Investigator, TRI Director and Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research
John Arthur, M.D., Ph.D., TRI Associate Director; KL2 Program Director

Leadership Council

The Leadership Council consists of leaders representing TRI’s programs. The Leadership Council convenes regularly to provide strategic guidance to TRI’s executive leadership and assist in charting and prioritizing programmatic, organizational and financial issues.

* denotes TRI program directors.

Laura James, M.D.

Principal Investigator, TRI Director and Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research

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As principal investigator, director of the Translational Research Institute (TRI) and associate vice chancellor for clinical and translational research, Laura James, M.D., is responsible for the overall administration and strategic development of the institute.

James is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine and Section Chief of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH). Her research program in acetaminophen toxicity has been funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases since 1999. In 2006, she founded Acetaminophen Toxicity Diagnostics, LLC, to develop a novel device for the rapid detection of acetaminophen toxicity. She also oversees clinical trials that address the appropriate and safe use of a number of medications in children.

James previously served as principal investigator of the ACH Pediatric Pharmacology Research Unit, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She has served as an associate editor for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics since 2008. She has mentored numerous pediatric residents, graduate students and junior faculty and has been named among “The Best Doctors in America” in multiple categories.

James received her medical degree from the University of South Carolina and completed a pediatrics residency at UAMS. She completed fellowships in Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAMS, respectively. She joined the faculty of UAMS in 1996.

John Arthur, M.D., Ph.D.

TRI Associate Director

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As associate director, John Arthur, M.D., Ph.D., is providing leadership on multiple fronts for TRI. He is co-leader of TRI’s Research Forums, leader for the Collaboration and Multi-disciplinary Team Science functions, serves as a the director for the KL2 Scholars program, and is program faculty for the Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) training program.

Arthur is professor and chief of nephrology in the UAMS College of Medicine and also has an appointment at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. He is past chair of the Charleston VA Research and Development Committee and will serve an important role as liaison between the VA and TRI. He has expertise in building multidisciplinary teams and has a track record of research that blends basic science and clinical care.

He is a practicing nephrologist with an interest in acute and chronic kidney disease. The research in his laboratory focuses on the pathophysiology of kidney disease and the discovery and validation of biomarkers. He has been using proteomic technologies for discovery and validation of biomarkers for over 15 years.

Arthur created and led three multi-center consortia, including the NIH-supported Southern Acute Kidney Injury Network, which resulted in significant advances in the area of biomarkers of acute kidney injury. Since his arrival at UAMS in 2015, he has built a consortium of private practice and academic nephrologists interested in a broad array of kidney diseases.

He has served as secretary-treasurer and president of the Southern Section of the American Federation of American Research, and was the founding director of the Medical University of South Carolina CTSA biobank.

Arthur received his medical degree and a doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Iowa. He completed an internal medicine residency followed by a research residency, both at Duke University. His residencies were followed by clinical nephrology and research in nephrology fellowships, also at Duke. He served on the faculty at the University of Louisville and the Medical University of South Carolina before coming to Little Rock.

Michael Birrer,M.D., Ph.D.

Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute

Michael Birrer

Michael Birrer, M.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute which is the only academic based cancer center in the state of Arkansas. He is a Vice Chancellor of UAMS and also serves as Director of the Cancer Service Line.

Birrer is recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in gynecologic oncology. He has published over 270 peer reviewed manuscripts and another 27 book chapters and review articles. He has served in leadership postions within the greater gynecologic oncology community. He has been the Chair and Chair Emeritus of the DOD Ovarian Cancer Research Program, Chair of the Committee for Experimental Medicine of the Gynecologic Oncology Group, a member of the Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee and Chair of the Translational Science Working Group of the Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup. Birrer has been a member of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, American Society of Clinical Oncologists, American Association of Cancer Research and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. He has been on the program committees of ASCO, SGO and IGCS.

Birrer earned his undergraduate degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and graduated with a BS in Biology. He subsequently was accepted into the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his MD and PhD in 1982 with his principle area of study in microbiology and immunology.

Beatrice Boateng, Ph.D.

Evaluation and Continuous Improvement

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As the evaluation director for TRI, Beatrice Boateng, Ph.D., employs a formative approach to evaluation, using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to assess program processes and provide regular feedback to TRI leadership.

Boateng is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). She is also the assistant dean for faculty assessment and evaluation in the College of Medicine. 

Since joining UAMS in 2007, Boateng has served on a number of education, research and diversity related task forces and committees in the College of Medicine. She has also earned numerous awards, including a 3-time winner of the Educator of the Year in the Department of Pediatrics, the 2013 UAMS Educational Technology Excellence Award and the 2017 UAMS Faculty Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion. Boateng earned her master’s degree in international affairs and a doctorate in instructional technology, both from Ohio University.

Elisabet Børsheim, Ph.D.

KL2 Program Co-Director

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Elisabet Børsheim, Ph.D., is a Co-Director of the KL2-program. She is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics (primary) and Department of Geriatrics (secondary) at UAMS. She serves as the Director of the Physical Activity Core at the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center (ACNC), which is a national Human Nutrition Research Center supported by the USDA- Agricultural Research Service. Further, she is the  Director of the Metabolism and Bioenergetics Core in the Center for Childhood Obesity Prevention at Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI) which is an NIH funded Center of Biological Research Excellence (COBRE), and the leader of the Physical Activity, Energetics and Metabolism Research Group at ACNC/ACRI.

The overall aim of Børsheim’s research is to promote metabolic health starting from the early life and across the lifespan. Her research program focuses on effects of nutrition and exercise on optimal growth, development and health in children and in the prevention of metabolic disorders later in life. Her team is using stable isotope methodology to study energy and substrate metabolism.

She has a B.Sc. in Natural Sciences and a M.Sc. in Physiology from the University of Oslo, Norway, in addition to a B.Sc. in Sport Sciences and a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. She did Postdoctoral training and continued as faculty at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX, before joining UAMS in 2013.

Keneshia Bryant-Moore, Ph.D., RN, FNP-BC

Community Engagement Core Associate Director

Keneshia Bryant-Morre

Keneshia Bryant-Moore, Ph.D., RN, FNP-BC, serves as an Associate Director of the Community Engagement Core of the UAMS Translational Research Institute (TRI). In this role she serves as a resource to researchers and community members and organizations interested in partnerships throughout the research process including the dissemination of research findings.

Bryant-Moore is the Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and an Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health. Presently, she serves as the Co-Director of the Community Engagement and Dissemination Core of the Arkansas Center for Health Disparities (ARCHD) which is funded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD).

Bryant-Moore has been a nurse for over 20 years providing direct patient care, health education, program planning, and implementation. Her research primarily focuses on health disparities and inequities experienced by minority racial/ethnic groups and vulnerable populations. Also, to support long-term engagement in research with the faith community, she has been awarded several contracts from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to support research dissemination, training, and platforms to generate new research ideas. Through these efforts, she has led the development of the Faith-Academic Initiative for Transforming Health (FAITH) Network. As part of this network faith leaders are educated on the basic principles of community-based participatory research and research ethics. The efforts of the FAITH Network are also supported by the TRI.

Bryant-Moore received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration from the University of Michigan-Flint; her Master of Science in Nursing from Duke University; and her PhD in Nursing from Azusa Pacific University. Bryant-Moore is a member of many professional organizations including Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society, American Public Health Association; the Little Rock Black Nurses Association of Arkansas (LRBNAA); and she is a lifetime member of the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA).

Geoffrey Curran, Ph.D.

Implementation Science

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Geoffrey Curran, Ph.D., is a TRI program director and leads TRI’s efforts in implementation science.

Curran is director of the UAMS Center for Implementation Research and is professor of pharmacy practice (College of Pharmacy) and psychiatry (College of Medicine). He is also a research health scientist at Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. He has served as principal investigator (PI) on numerous VA and National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded implementation research projects, and he established the concept of the “hybrid effectiveness-implementation design,” now in broad use. He served as one of 10 national experts on the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Research Design and Methods Working Group with the goal of developing guidance and tools for selecting implementation research designs.

Since joining UAMS in 1999 he has been conducting mental health services research, with a focus on implementation research for the last 15+ years. He has studied and published manuscripts primarily on: 1) adaptation and implementation of evidence-based practices in a variety of clinical and community settings, and 2) the broader area of perceived need, treatment utilization, treatment retention, and outcomes in mental health/substance use disorders.  The UAMS Center for Implementation Research’s mission is synergistic with the goals and activities of the TRI Implementation Science Optional Module. Curran teaches two graduate-level courses in implementation science and methods in the UAMS College of Public Health. He has experience establishing coalitions of partners to facilitate implementation research including the Federally Qualified Health Centers around Arkansas.

Curran earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in sociology from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

Hari Eswaran, Ph.D.

Digital Health

Hari Eswaran, Ph.D. is a standing member of Team Science group and in the leadership council at UAMS Translational Research Institute to help navigate the digital health portfolio.

He is currently a Professor and Director of Research with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Institute for Digital Health & Innovation (IDHI), University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He has a secondary appointment in Department of Biomedical Informatics. Currently, he leads the IDHI based South Central Telehealth Resource Center, one of just 14 federally-designated Telehealth Resource Centers located across the nation. 

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the past 20 years, Eswaran’s area of research focuses on digital health and biomedical instrumentation with special emphasis on fetal and maternal monitoring during pregnancy. Over the years, he has undertaken several non-invasive fetal monitoring studies and has published over 100 papers in these areas. He has served on several NIH review panels and, at present, is a standing member of the NIH Biocomputing and Health Informatics panel. Dr. Eswaran has organized various workshops in schools of technology, medicine, and nursing including joint Indo-US telemedicine collaborations, some of which the former President of India, Dr. APJ Kalam, launched. He has been part of several Scientific Committees and Advisory Boards related to global and rural health programs including the national Society for Education and Advancement in Research in Connected Health (SEARCH). He an Interdisciplinary Research Fellow at a national leadership program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to equip teams of researchers and on-the-ground change agents with advanced leadership skills and a clear focus on health and equity, allowing them to apply health research and policy to meet the pressing needs of communities.

Eswaran received the B.Sc. (Honors) Physics and M.Sc. (Electronics) degrees from the University of Delhi, India, M.S. (Physics) from the University of Mississippi and Ph.D. in Applied Sciences (Biomedical) from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Brian Gittens, Ed.D., MPA

Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Brian Gittens

Brian Gittens, Ed.D., MPA, specializes in strategic diversity and inclusion, organizational and leadership development, organizational assessment and analysis, change management, and talent management in support of optimizing organizational performance and quality initiatives.  Gittens is a diversity and inclusion executive, human resource professional, researcher, educator, and consultant with more than 29 years of operational and administrative experience.  He has successfully led and collaborated on the design and implementation of organization-wide diversity and inclusion initiatives, organizational development programs, and competency assessments.

Gittens is a graduate of the George Washington University (EdD., Higher Education Administration-research focused on leadership development and organizational culture) and Virginia Tech (B.A. Communications and Masters in Public Administration). He is a Certified Senior Professional of Human Resources and graduate of the AAMC Healthcare Executive Diversity and Inclusion Certificate program.

Nancy Gray, Ph.D.

President of BioVentures; TL1 Heath Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program Co-Director

Nancy Gray

Nancy M. Gray, Ph.D., co-directs TRI’s TL1 Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Training Program and serves on the TRI Leadership Council.  Gray is the director and president of BioVentures, LLC, the technology licensing office and business incubator for the UAMS.  She also is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the College of Medicine. Since coming to UAMS in 2015 she has co-developed several entrepreneurship training programs and continues to serve these programs as teaching faculty and entrepreneurship mentor.  She is the director of the TRI-sponsored seminar series titled “Health Science Entrepreneurs: Innovators of Health Care” which has evolved into a collaborative effort with four other CTSA’s and an academic medical center.  She is a founder and director of the Health Sciences Entrepreneurship Boot Camp that is offered to Arkansas-based undergraduate and graduate students interested in non-academic careers in health sciences.  In 2018, the Boot Camp earned a second place Innovations in Research and Research Education Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges. Additionally, Gray serves as the Satellite Director on UAMS’s hub for the FFMI fastPACE Program designed by the University of Michigan Fast Forward Medical Innovation team and sponsored by TRI. 

Prior to joining UAMS, Gray accumulated more than thirty years of experience in biomedical industries, including medicinal chemistry research, management of pharmaceutical research and development, and business operations. In the past, she led numerous transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures, minority investments, technology licenses and divestitures for the life sciences, engineering, and environment and energy businesses. She also led the turnaround of infectious diseases contract services business, increasing revenue by $7 million and profit by $1.2 million in three years. In her past roles at various startups, she was responsible for authoring the business plans that successfully raised an aggregate $126 million in venture capital financing.  Nancy’s research work on central nervous system diseases resulted in three products being accepted for clinical development in five years. She was also instrumental in the development of two marketed second generation antihistamines, Allegra® and Xyzal®. Nancy is the inventor on 32 issued U.S. patents and the author of 23 publications.  She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Bucknell University and her doctorate in medicinal chemistry from the University of Illinois.

Carolyn Greene, Ph.D.

Team Science Director; KL2 Program Co-Director

Carolyn Greene

Carolyn Greene, Ph.D. is a nationally recognized expert and innovator in the use of digital health and innovative technologies to increase access to evidence-based healthcare. Greene is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry’s Center for Health Services Research. Her research has focused on using mobile apps to deliver care to underserved Arkansans.

In addition to her roles at UAMS, Greene also serves as a National Manager of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Mental Health and Suicide prevention. Her primary responsibility is developing, evaluating, and implementing their award-winning program of online mental health resources for our country’s 20 million veterans. In a previous position at the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Greene directed the first rigorous clinical trial establishing that telehealth is as clinically effective as traditional delivery of group psychotherapy and was on the team who produced VA’s first mental health mobile application, PTSD Coach, which has been downloaded 500,000 times in 115 countries around the world.

Greene has been recognized as an Innovation Leader by the American Psychiatric Association. She received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the New School for Social Research and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Tiffany Haynes, Ph.D.

Community-Based Participatory Research

Tiffany Hayes, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with expertise in mental health services research, intervention development, and community-based participatory research (CBPR), serves as an Associate Director of TRI’s Community Engagement Core.

Haynes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education within the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health. She has served as principal investigator on several National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI) funded grants that focus on the development of mental health interventions that can be utilized within community-based settings such as churches.

Currently, Haynes is the PI of a NIMHD-funded study that seeks to test the effectiveness of a faith-based depression intervention in partnership with 24 churches across Arkansas.  Additionally, Haynes is a co-founder of the Arkansas FAITH Network, a coalition of places of worship, health care organizations, and health researchers, that partner together to reduce health disparities in Arkansas.

Dr. Haynes earner her master’s and doctorate degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI.

Anna Huff Davis

TRI Leadership Council Community Representative

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Anna Huff Davis has been a community research advocate providing training and partnering with researchers on multiple studies over the past 20 years. She has been a community liaison with the COPH’s Office of Community-Based Public Health since 2001. She served as a community partner on Arkansas’ Nutritional Intervention Research Initiative (NIRI) in the Mississippi River Delta funded by USDA and worked with Dr. Stewart to develop and implement community training on Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and the ethics of research for communities involved in NIRI. Since that time she has served as community deputy director of the Arkansas Prevention Research Center, as chair of the community advisory board for the TRI, as recruiter for the FRESH and REJOICE studies among many others. She has co-instructed the Community Scientist Academy (CSA) and serves as the primary facilitator for the Dos and Don’ts of Community Engagement workshop. She also serves as the chair of the board of the Arkansas Community Health Worker Association. As a life-long African American resident of Marvell, Arkansas in the Mississippi River Delta of Arkansas, she brings an invaluable community research partner’s perspective to the community engagement.  She also co-instruct Community Based Public Health Program Design in the College of Public Health.  

She received a degree in business administration from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, certification for the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and has completed community-based education graduate coursework at the University of California, Davis.

Pearl McElfish, Ph.D., MBA

Integrating Special Populations; Vice Chancellor, UAMS Northwest Regional Campus

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Pearl McElfish, Ph.D., MBA, serves as the Vice Chancellor for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Northwest Regional Campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas, oversees the Office of Community Health and Research, serves as Director of the Center for Pacific Islander Health, and holds faculty positions in the UAMS Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. She is the founder of the Office of Community Health and Research at UAMS Northwest Regional Campus and of the Center for Pacific Islander Health at UAMS. Since late 2014, she has been awarded more than $40 million in federal and private foundation grants for investment in community health in Northwest Arkansas and published more than 140 peer-reviewed articles.

McElfish holds a PhD in public policy, a master’s degree in business administration, and a master’s degree in community and economic development. She is a certified Project Management Professional and a Certified Community Developer and has more than 15 years of experience working in health care administration and community health.

McElfish’s research focuses on reducing health disparities with Pacific Islander and Hispanic Communities. She also conducts food systems research and methodological research related to the best methods for conducting community-based participatory research and for disseminating research results to participants and communities. She has a history of funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and other private foundations.

Jean McSweeney, Ph.D., R.N.

Liaison to Recruitment Innovation Centers

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Jean McSweeney, Ph.D., oversaw development of and now directs the TRI’s state-wide participant research registry, ARreseaarch.org.

McSweeney recently retired from her positon as Associate Dean for Research and Professor and in the College of Nursing. She now holds the rank of Professor Emeritus. She is a research pioneer in the field of women’s cardiovascular disease and published the first study that described women’s symptoms of heart disease. Findings from her initial studies about women’s early warning and acute symptoms of heart disease across ethnic groups received national and international coverage from television and radio stations, such as CNN & CBS Evening News and newspapers including the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. She has presented her research findings to the National Heart Attack Alert Coordinating Board, served as a discussant for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart Lung, and Blood Institute’s Women’s Ischemia Taskforce, and was a featured speaker at the NIH National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) 20th Anniversary Symposium. She has presented the National institute of Nursing Research, NIH, Director’s Lecture as well as many other invited lectureships. Nationally, she has served on the American Heart Association Research Committee, the National Institute of Nursing Advisory Council, and the National Institute of Health Council of Councils, NIH.

 She has received funding for her research endeavors from the NINR, American Heart Association, Sigma Theta Tau International and the American Nurses Foundation. She has received continuous NINR funding since 1999. She has published in numerous nursing and medical journals including Circulation, the premier cardiovascular medical journal. Her research on women’s symptoms of heart disease have also been featured in a variety of women’s magazines and news journals such as Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Prevention, and U.S. News and World Report. She also served as the director of a NIH-funded P20 Center for Bio-behavioral Interventions in the College of Nursing.

McSweeney is the recipient of many awards including the American Heart Association (AHA) “Manuscript of the Year” Award, the UAMS Chancellor’s University Graduate Teaching Award, the AHA “Best Abstract Award,” and the Southern Nursing Research Society “Leadership in Research” Award, the AHA Lembright Award and the AHA Volunteer for the Year Award. She is recognized as a Distinguished Alumni of the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing and of the University of Texas at Arlington. She is a Fellow in both the AHA and the American Academy of Nursing.

McSweeney received her baccalaureate in nursing from Cameron University in Lawton, Okla., her master’s in nursing from the University of Texas at Arlington, and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She belongs to many professional organizations including American Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honor Society, and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, and the American Heart Association Council of Cardiovascular Nursing. She is a long-standing member and past president of Southern Nursing Research Society. She is one of four nurses who serve on the NIH National Institute of Nursing Research Advisory Council. She was recently appointed to the NIH Council of Councils that advises the NIH director. She is a fellow in both the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Nursing.

Donald M. Mock, M.D., Ph.D.

Pilot Program Director; Mock Study Section Co-Director

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Donald Mock, Ph.D., is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, as well as pediatrics, and has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1984.(Does CTSA funding count?) He has published 147 peer-reviewed manuscripts and dozens of book chapters, reviews, and solicited commentaries. He is principal investigator on a completed NIH R37 (year 28), founder/project director/core lab director for the first 25 years of an ongoing program project grant (P01), and the leader of the team that discovered and characterized the original cases of biotin deficiency during total parenteral alimentation (providing nourishment intravenously) and of inborn (genetically determined) biotin transporter deficiency.

During his leadership of long-standing National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute funded research, he has applied his knowledge in the area of biotinylation of red cells for use in red blood cell (RBC) kinetic studies of relevance to neonatal transfusion medicine. Mock’s broad background (spanning physics, biochemistry, nutrition, pediatrics, gastroenterology, and clinical research including regulatory affairs – as principal investigator, administrator and research subjects advocate) has enabled an effective application of basic and clinical science to solve problems in designing and implementing studies in individuals who age covers the entire lifespan. He has been recognized by several research and teaching awards, including the Deans Distinguished Faculty Scholar in 2014.

Mock has served on 34 extramural grant peer review panels, including 28 NIH regular or ad hoc panels; Dr. Mock served as program director for the USDA Competitive Program in Human Nutrient Requirements.

He received his medical degree from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and completed his pediatric residency at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. He received a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas, and he completed fellowships in pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition and clinical research at the University of California, San Francisco.

Fred Prior, Ph.D.

Biomedical Informatics

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Fred Prior, Ph.D., is a TRI program director and leads TRI’s Comprehensive Informatics Resource Center (CIRC), overseeing all biomedical informatics efforts for TRI.

He is a professor and the inaugural chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, and professor of Radiology in the UAMS College of Medicine. He has extensive research and development (R&D) experience in industry and academia focused on the design of advanced medical information management and imaging technologies. He has held senior management positions in a variety of R&D environments ranging from Silicon Valley startups to major multi-national corporations in the United States and Europe.

Prior’s research interests include cancer and neuro imaging informatics, radiomics, open access data publication and applications of distributed machine learning. He serves as principle investigator and director of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Imaging Archive project and is the lead PI of an NCI ITCR team exploring the integration of radiomics and pathomics. Recently Prior’s team joined a consortium of European colleagues to successfully compete for a Horizon 2020 award from the EU to develop a platform for distributed data management and machine learning to advance precision medicine in oncology.

Dr. Prior is an editorial board member for Nature Scientific Data and an associate editor of several other leading scientific journals.  He serves as a reviewer for numerous scientific and engineering journals as well as U.S. and European funding agencies. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds seven U.S. and international patents.

Paula Roberson, Ph.D.

Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design

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Paula Roberson, Ph.D., leader of TRI’s Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) function, is professor and chair of the UAMS Department of Biostatistics, which is jointly administered by the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health. She is an active participant in the Association of Clinical and Translational Statisticians and in the BERD Special Interest Group of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science.  In addition to her role on the TRI, she is the interim director of the Biostatistics Core for the Center for Childhood Obesity Prevention (supported by a COBRE award from NIGMS) and a co-investigator and co-leader of the Clinical Trials Skills Development Core for the Data Coordinating and Operations Center of the IDeA States Pediatrics Clinical Trials Network, funded through the NIH Director’s Office.

An elected fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Roberson is a recognized leader in biostatistical aspects of the design, conduct and analysis of biomedical research. A frequent reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, she has served as a standing member on both the Clinical Oncology Study Section (CONC) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Clinical Trials Review Committee. She was a member of the NHLBI appointed Data Safety Monitoring Boards for the Stroke with Transfusions Changing to Hydroxyurea (SWiTCH) Trial, the Transfusion Medicine/Hemostasis Clinical Trial Network (TMH CTN), and the Transfusion Trigger Trial for Functional Outcomes in Cardiovascular Patients Undergoing Surgical Hip Fracture Repair (FOCUS). She served as the chair of the protocol review committee for the NHLBI Chronic Hypertension and Pregnancy (CHAP) trial, and is a member of the DSMB for CHAP as well as an NHLBI-appointed DSMB for a trial to compare individualized vs weight based protocols to treat vaso-occlusive episodes in sickle cell disease (COMPARE VOE). She was the 2015 president of the Caucus for Women in Statistics and served on the ASA Board of Directors during 2016-2018. She is a member of the Statistical Advisory Board for the online journal PLoS ONE.

Roberson earned her doctorate in biomathematics from the University of Washington in Seattle. Prior to joining UAMS in 1993, she held positions with the Health Effects Research Laboratory of the Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati, Ohio, and with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Nancy Rusch, Ph.D.

Translational Workforce Development; TL1 Heath Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program Co-Director

Nancy Rusch, Ph.D.
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Nancy J. Rusch, Ph.D., co-directs the NRSA Training Core that includes the Health Science Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) postdoctoral training program. She also directs workforce development efforts for the TRI by developing structured career pathways for clinical and translational research professionals and identifying opportunities across the CTSA hub to expand clinical and translational research and improve extramural funding.

Rusch is professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the College of Medicine, a position she has held since 2005. Her research focuses on ion channel mechanisms of hypertension and identifying antihypertensive drug targets.  She has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Heart Association (AHA) and other funding sources for 30 years. Her leadership positions including chairing multiple NIH study sections and review groups, serving on the Southwest Affiliate Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, and serving as president of the Cardiovascular Division of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Rusch has served as primary mentor to more than 40 undergraduate and graduate students, fellows and visiting faculty, most of whom applied for and obtained extramural grants to support their training. She was awarded the Chancellor’s Faculty Teaching award in 2009 and named Graduate Faculty Member of the Year by the UAMS Graduate School in 2014 to recognize her successful mentoring of research trainees. In 2020, she was awarded the Educational Innovation Award by the College of Medicine for developing and co-directing the Health Science Innovation and Entrepreneurship postdoctoral training grant, which is funded by the CTSA grant awarded to the TRI.

Mary Kathryn (Kate) Stewart, M.D., M.P.H.

Community Engagement

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Mary Kathryn “Kate” Stewart, M.D., M.P.H., directs TRI’s Community Engagement program. In this capacity she oversees activities fostering collaboration and partnerships involving community members and organizations, patients and families, and clinician stakeholders to address health issues that are vital to translational research.

Stewart, a professor of health policy and management in the UAM Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health (COPH), directs the Office of Community-Based Public Health and leads the community engagement efforts of the Arkansas Center for Health Disparities and the Arkansas Prevention Research Center at COPH. Through these leadership roles she has partnered with communities to create infrastructure for community-engaged research with support from the National Institutes of Health, federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, federal Health Resources and Services Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has more than 30 years of experience engaging communities, both domestically and internationally, in research and interdisciplinary efforts to improve public health. Her efforts have led to policy changes related to access to care, community health workers, and long-term care.

Stewart earned her medical degree from UAMS and obtained a Master of Public Health with a concentration in international health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Her postgraduate training included an internship in family medicine at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, and a residency in preventive medicine and a fellowship in health and child survival, both from Johns Hopkins. Prior to joining the UAMS faculty in 1997, she spent nearly a decade working internationally in the Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family Program in Bangladesh and for the Demographic and Health Surveys Program in Namibia, the Philippines and Ethiopia.

Kristin K. Zorn, M.D.

Liaison to the Cancer Clinical Trials and Regulatory Affairs Office

Kristin Zorn

Kristin K. Zorn, MD, is the Associate Director for Clinical Research in the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute and serves as the liaison to TRI from the CCTRA. She completed medical school and residency at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Her gynecologic oncology fellowship was completed at the National Cancer Institute and University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She is currently a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and associate professor in the Division of Genetics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Zorn serves as the medical director for cancer clinical trials and as the local Principal Investigator for the NRG Oncology cooperative group. She has been the PI for pharmaceutical and investigator-initiated trials as well as cooperative group trials. She focuses on addressing disparities in access to cancer genetic counseling and testing in her research.